For the Analyst's Notepad the Editors welcome the contribution of brief clinical vignettes demonstrating nascent ideas that may not be ready for more formal presentation. We hope also that this space may become a forum in which an exchange of ideas and clinical experiences can take place, proceeding responsively from issue to issue. Readers are invited, therefore, to submit both original and responsive contributions without regard to the theme of any particular issue.

Freud (1913) observed that criminals would gravitate toward any area of the city that was declared off-limits for the police. He argued that the patient's unconscious conflicts would similarly shift to any area that is declared off-limits for the patient's free associations. But what about areas that are off-limits for the analyst's comments? A common